April 17 (SeeNews) - Bosnia's Federation government said it has revised the 2020 budget, increasing the original spending target by 11.2% to 5.5 billion marka ($3.0 billion/2.8 billion euro) to finance expenses arising from the ongoing coronavirus crisis.
In absolute terms, spending was lifted by 554.5 million marka, the government said in a statement on Thursday.
The government added that in the revision it has also cut the originally planned revenue from profit tax by 21%, from pension insurance by 15.2%, and from indirect taxes by 16.7%, which amounts to an overall expected drop of 493 million marka in tax revenue.
With the revision, the Federation government is striving to make savings by limiting budget spending and strengthening budget discipline, cutting current and capital transfers, and planned investment, as well as lowering costs for repayment of domestic debt, it said.
The objective is to redirect available funding to the economy and local businesses in order to help them mitigate the negative impact of the coronavirus crisis. In line with this, 500 million marka are being allocated to the Federation's Fund for Economic Stability, which will support the new law for supporting the crisis-stricken economy, the entity's government said.
The budget revision waws sent to the federation parliament for approval in a fast-track procedure.
The Federation is one of two entities that form Bosnia and Herzegovina. The other is the Serb Republic.
(1 euro = 1.95583 marka)